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Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas
Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas'' (also known as ''Beauty and the Beast 2) is a 1997 American direct-to-video animated Christmas musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. It was released on November 11, 1997 and features the characters of the 1991 Walt Disney Pictures film ''Beauty and the Beast''. Plot The film begins with everyone getting prepared for Christmas. Lumiere and Cogsworth argue about who saved Christmas last year. Chip begs Mrs. Potts to be the narrator of the story. After hesitating, she agrees. Soon everyone is gathered around Mrs. Potts as she tells the events of what happened after Beast saved Belle from the wolves. The story is made into a full-length flashback of when the Prince is the Beast and his servants are the Enchanted Objects. Belle is still a prisoner in Beast's castle. All the servants are trying to figure out a way for them to fall in love with each other and with Christmas coming up, they look at this as a great opportunity to bring them together. Belle is excited about Christmas, but Beast is not happy seeing how it is the anniversary of his spell being cast upon the castle. Belle finds the Beast outside and offers him to teach him ice-skating. Meanwhile, in an unknown part of the castle (through a secret door in the West Wing), an enormous pipe organ is composing rhythmic music while a small piccolo applauds. The organ is Forte, the court composer for the musicians during his human years. The organ player is not in the mood to be human again, so he decides to figure a way for the Beast to steer clear of falling in love with Belle. He believes that "humanity is overrated" and that he has more use and power in his enchanted form. He tells Fife that he has written a solo for a piccolo in his opera, which persuades Fife to be forced to break up the merriment between Belle and the Beast. Fife is able to interrupt Belle and the Beast's skating, causing them to crash into the snow. Then, when Belle makes a snow angel, she and the Beast get up in the snow to see their snow figures, but when the Beast smiles at Belle's angel while rubbing his head, he suddenly makes a low growl and looks at his own snow print. While looking, he assumes that this is no angel, but the shadow of a monster. Enraged, he roars, thrashes around through the snow and storms off in a fit of rage, leaving Belle and the others outside. Then when Fife chuckles and hopes that Forte is going to be so proud of him, the Beast stomps back into the castle in fury and depression. Belle has no idea why she bothers, and as she flops back into the snow, she assumes that the Beast is "worse than ever", but Mrs. Potts tells her not to lose heart. Inside the castle, Forte is playing gloomy music while the Beast stomps into the West Wing and looks at the enchanted Rose the Enchantress gave him. After assuming that he hates Christmas, the Beast sits on his chair by the fire, and when Forte tells him that the music helps, the Beast mumbles to the pipe organ that his music is the only thing that will help him forget. Forte tells the Beast that he is always here for him. Believing that Christmas will brighten the Beast's mood, Belle creates a wonderful new book for him. With a little persuasion for Cogsworth, Christmas is officially being prepared. The gang goes to the highest tower in the castle, which serves as a storage room for old decorations. In one of them lies Angelique (with a number of other animated baubles) who once served as the Royal Decorator. However, she is not pleased to hear about Christmas, arguing that she will not raise her hopes again in a belief that they could all get together in celebration, until they are destroyed by the Beast's foul temper and hatred for the holiday, despite Cogsworth's misgivings. Belle sings to them about how "hope is the greatest gift", saying that there is always hope, even for breaking the spell, and there will "always be a time when the world is filled with peace and love". Eventually, Angelique reluctantly agrees. However, Fife has been overhearing all this and rushes off to tell Forte. When the Beast finds out, he is far from pleased, and wants Christmas to be depleted. Forte plays along, saying that "the girl doesn't care how you feel about Christma''s", separating the two even more. The Beast reflects on his past: Christmas was the day he was most selfish, and it was on that day that the Enchantress put the spell on him and the castle. Belle enters the boiler room and meets Axe, head of the boiler room. She tells him she needs a Yule Log and he tells her to help herself. Beast finds her and demands to know what is going on. She explains that it is a great tradition: "one log is chosen, then everyone in the house touches it, and makes a Christmas wish". However, the Beast claims that wishes are stupid and bellows at Belle, "You made a Christmas wish last year! Is this what you wished for?!" He shouts that she has no idea what it is to be a true prisoner, but she knows all too well. After finally having enough, the Beast hates Christmas once again and storms out, despite Cogsworth's misgivings. Belle refuses to give up and concludes that they will have Christmas with or without the Beast, but not before sending him her gift: the storybook. Belle and Chip take Axe with them to go look for a Christmas tree, but none on the grounds are very promising. Beast finds his gift, but Lumiere will not allow him to open it because it's not Christmas. He explains that everyone understands how Beast feels about the holiday, but giving a gift to another is a way of saying, "I care about you." The Beast gets in the mood, and demands Forte to compose a song as a present, who agrees unhappily. When he leaves, Forte puts his plans in motion, and plays beautiful music, attracting Belle to his room. Forte quickly manipulates the situation, telling her that the tree has always been Beast's favorite part of Christmas, and that she would find a much better tree lies in the Black Forest, the woods outside the castle. Getting the tree would break Belle's promise never to leave the castle, but she wants to make Beast happy, so she agrees to go, taking Chip and Axe. Forte orders Fife "to make sure they don't come back". Beast is still waiting for Belle to show up, but Forte claims, "''she's abandoned you!" and feeds Beast's anger, trying to persuade him to forget her, but he races out anyway. In his anger, Beast destroys the decorations in the dining room where Angelique was and storms off outside to look for Belle, leaving Angelique hopeless. Meanwhile, Belle and the others look for a tree, but Fife startles Phillipe on the ice, creating a chain reaction that leads to Belle nearly drowning and being rescued by the Beast. Belle is locked in the dungeon for breaking her promise, but Angelique comes to visit her with the other baubles and admits that she was wrong to believe that Christmas could never come. They all agree that they don't need decorations or gifts to celebrate Christmas; they have each other and that is the best gift they could ever ask for. Meanwhile, prompted by Forte, Beast threatens to destroy the rose, but one of the flower petals fall on the present. Beast then remembers the gift Belle gave him, opens it and reads it. Remembering there is hope to break the spell, he ignores Forte and releases Belle, asking her for forgiveness. After she accepts, the Beast announces plans to have the best Christmas ever. Enraged at the failure of his plans, Forte plans to bring the whole castle down with the rationale that they cannot fall in love again; this horrifies Fife, who finds it far too extreme and then he learns that his promised solo is blank. The Beast manages to get into the room until Forte's powerful music confounds him as he has no idea what to strike at. With Fife's advice, the Beast unplugs Forte's keyboard with his strength and smashing it, causing him to come crashing down and shatter into pieces, and the Beast laments the death of his old, traitorous confidant. Together, they continue to have a happy holiday which brings us back to the actual party, but of course, if anyone actually saved Christmas, it was Belle, and Fife becomes the new court composer of the castle. After the story, everyone celebrates as the Prince gives Belle a gift: a single rose. Voice Cast *Robby Benson as Beast *Paige O'Hara as Belle *Jerry Orbach as Lumière *David Ogden Stiers as Cogsworth *Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts *Haley Joel Osment as Chip **Andrew Keenan-Bolger as Chip (singing voice) *Paul Reubens as Fife *Bernadette Peters as Angelique *Tim Curry as Forte *Frank Welker as Phillippe the Horse and Sultan *Jeff Bennett as Axe *Kath Soucie as The Enchantress Production Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas was put on a direct-to-video release after ''The Return of Jafar'' and other sequels based on theatrical films were having success on the direct-to-video market. The film was the first product of a subsidiary of Walt Disney Television Animation's Toronto Studio. The studio was shut down in 2002 because of studio cutbacks. The animation coordination done by Walt Disney Television Animation's Sydney Studio and Wang Film Productions Co., Ltd. located in Xindian District, Taipei, Taiwan and Characters Builders. In the early stages of production, the movie was going to be a sequel to the original film; the film was to feature Avenant (who is depicted as Gaston's younger brother) as the villain. Avenant's goal was to avenge Gaston by ruining the lives of Belle and the prince and threatening to kill them, reportedly using sorcery to transform the prince back into a Beast and frame Belle for it. Although he was cut out of the story and the plot had changed, this trait was given to Forte, the pipe organ (who did not want the Beast to become human again); this plot was inspired by the 1946 film, which inspired the first film and where Avenant was the villain and inspiration for Gaston. While the original film depicted the Enchantress' transformation of the Beast with stills of stained-glass windows, Enchanted Christmas reenacts this event with an animated sequence while also including the servants' transformations too. Reception Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas received an approval rating of 13% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 7 reviews. Category:Films Category:Disney films Category:Romance films Category:Children and family films Category:American films Category:Direct to video films Category:1990s films Category:Christmas films Category:DisneyToon Studios films Category:Sequels Category:G-rated films